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MTlO!4 PICT;,;?, L.?:L',>:! IT,;~; AND RECORDED SOUijD DiVI:;Y:4
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations
STATEMENT
for
THE NATIONAL FILM PRESERVATION BOARD
Good morning, my name is Marie Nesthus. I am Head Librarian of
Donne11 Media Center of The New York Public Library. Joining me
today are Mary Boone Bowling, Curator of Manuscripts at the
Central Research Library, and James Briggs Murray, Curator of the
Moving Image and Recording Sound Division at the Schomburg Center
for Research in Black Culture.
The New York Public Library welcomes the passage of the National
Film Preservation Act of 1992, which acknowledges the need for
national leadership in the field of film preservation and re-
establishes the National Film Preservation Board for that
purpose. We are also pleased that the Board was expanded to
include representation from the film archives community. It is
especially encouraging that the Board is now seeking information
on the preservation efforts and needs of the various types of
public institutions that have film holdings. These measures
indicate that the Board is expanding its sphere of activity, a
process we believe to be essential if it is to fulfill its
mandate to develop "a comprehensive national film preservation
program." We welcome the opportunity to contribute to this goal
by sharing The New York Public Library's experience with and
concern about film preservation.
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is one of many repositories
whose primary mission is not the collection of motion pictures,
but whose holdings contain significant film collections. A
number of units of the Library actively collect film. These
include Donnell Media Center; The Theatre on Film and Tape
Archive of The Billy Rose Theatre Collection, and the Dance
Collection in its Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln
Center; the Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division in the
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; and the Rare
Books and Manuscripts Division, located in the landmark Central
Research Library.
The collection of 7,000 films at Donnell Media Center began with
a modest acquisition program in the 1950s. For nearly four
decades, film specialists and librarians at Donnell have
carefully selected films to add to the collection. In addition,
Donnell Media Center has a collection of nearly 7,000 videotapes.
Throughout the years, the collection's focus has been on
independent film production of all varieties--documentaries,
experimental film, independently produced feature films,
children's film and animation. Within the independent film
community, the Donnell collection is so well known that inclusion
in it is often noted on an artist's resume.
With the passage of time and the serious fluctuations within the
independent or non-theatrical film industry (including failures
of distributors and film laboratories), a great number of films
have been lost. Some have simply been dropped from distribution;
others have been lost completely, with all distribution prints
and laboratory printing materials destroyed or missing. The
Media Center increasingly finds itself to be the owner of rare,
and in some instances, unique film materials. Donnell's
collection serves as an essential resource for film programmers
at other institutions (e.g., the Museum of Modern Art, New York's
Public Theater and The Hirshhorn Museum) and also for film
professors and scholars.
Although Donnell Media Center has never had the funding necessary
to house its collection under archival conditions, it has
carefully inspected, repaired, and maintained its films between
each use. It has thoroughly cataloged its holdings in machine
readable form, and made its printed catalogs available to the
public for consultation and for sale. It has made prints
available for screening within its film and video study facility.
An important segment of film and cultural history can be found on
Donnell's shelves; the fact that Donnell owns these films
increases their likelihood of survival.
In addition to Donnell Media Center, two divisions of The New
York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the Theatre on Film
and Tape (TOFT) Archive and the Dance Collection, contain
extensive film holdings. TOFT is the world's foremost collection
of films and videotapes of live theatre performances. In 1970,
TOFT began to film, videotape, collect and preserve visual
records of Broadway, off-Broadway and regional theatre
productions; dialogues, lectures and seminars featuring
distinguished theatre personalities; and a variety of theatre-
related programs, including filmed and television adaptations of
theatre productions, documentaries, interviews, and awards
programs. The major part of the Archive consists of theatre
productions recorded during performance and includes excerpts
from Rodgers and Hart and Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, as
well as most of the outstanding productions of the last two
decades, including Equus, Amadeus, A Chorus Line, The Phantom of
the Opera and several productions of Shakespeare. Rare extant
footage also includes filmed versions of theatre classics,
featuring such theatre notables as George Bernard Shaw, George M.
Cohan, and Mary Martin, and the home movies of Richard Rodgers
and George Gershwin. Although TOFT'S 2,176 programs are made
available on videocassette, the Archive includes 132,236 feet
(128 reels) of motion picture film prints in storage at the Iron
Mountain Storage Facility in Rosendale, New York, which are in
danger of deterioration. These consist of original films of
Broadway productions recorded by TOFT prior to securing union
permission to use videotape, kinescopes of early TOFT videotapes
and some materials acquired by TOFT from outside sources. In
addition to these prints, negatives, optical sound tracks,
outtakes, and work prints are also stored at Iron Mountain.
These materials are fully cataloged and will be accessible
through an on-site local data base. The unique material in this
Archive provides rare and precious research information which,
with proper and careful preservation, will remain available as a ~i
treasured American cultural resource. B
The Dance Collection contains over 9,000 films and videotapes, I
1,000 every year, representing the first time in history that the
art of dance has been systematically documented in motion. The
collection policy of the Dance Collection is comprehensive; all
forms and styles of dance are included. These are primary
sources that form the backbone of virtually any serious research
of twentieth century dance. They provide current artists with
inspiration and reference resources. Included in the Dance
Collection are unique films documenting the early years of such
major dance companies as the New York City Ballet, American
Ballet Theater, the Joffrey Ballet, the Martha Graham Dance
Company and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Further,
these films document the choreographic careers of America's
creative geniuses, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Martha
Graham. The Dance Collection also holds footage of Anna Pavlova
dancing in 1915 in a film directed by silent American film
director, Lois Weber, and Rudolf Nureyev's 1958 graduation
performance in Leningrad. As Jerome Robbins has emphasized,
films and videotapes of dance provide the equivalent of decoding
the key to the Rosetta Stone.
Since 1965, over 550 dance works by some 150 choreographers have
been filmed or videotaped by the Dance Collection, with
consistent support from state and federal arts funding agencies.
These are unique records from which the dance works can be
studied today and reconstructed in the future.
An on-going preservation program was established in the Dance
Collection, partially supported by continuous funding from the
American Film Institute, to address the problem of shrunken and
brittle films. A list is maintained of such films not owned by
other archives, which are especially important for documenting
the history of dance. Preservation proceeds according to
selection criteria which prioritize the historic importance of
the choreography or performers in the film and the rarity of
documentation. Preservation work is performed by outside
laboratories with technical specialists individually approved by
the Dance Collection and by similar archives.
The films and videotapes are housed under special temperature and
humidity conditions. Viewing copies are gradually being created
on 314" videotape, which has proved most successful with users;
preservation masters are stored off-site at Iron Mountain. A
register of "conditiont1 information on each film is maintained.
This film and videotape preservation activity is headed by a
full-time staff technician and a part-time specialist;
supplementary hourly staff assist as funding permits. Quality
assurance consists of staff inspection of materials before and
after outside laboratory work is done.
Films and videotapes can be viewed in the Dance Collection's
reading room; some are exhibited selectively as part of the
Library's public programs. Public access for individual research
is facilitated by an on-line catalog. This catalog is also
available off-site through Internet, and available for purchase
in CD-ROM or bound volumes. Arrangements have been made to load
this data into the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN),
a national bibliographic database, within several months.
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is among the
world's foremost institutions devoted to documenting, preserving
and providing access to research resources on the historical and
cultural development of peoples of African descent throughout the
world. Over the past two decades the Center's Moving Image and
Recorded Sound Division has developed collections of materials
documented by way of audio-visual technology. Included are some
1 5 , 0 0 0 recorded music discs, 5 , 0 0 0 hours of oral history
recordings, 4 ,000 video tapes (primarily public affairs
television programs and television commercials) and a substantial
collection of motion picture film. Both completed productions
and unedited outtakes are collected. Approximately 5 0 0 films,
consisting primarily of 16mm documentaries, complement the
Center's holdings in other formats. Included are political,
anthropological, religious and performing arts documentaries
illustrating life experiences (and interpretations thereof) in
the United States, Africa, the Caribbean, South America and Latin
America. Many of the titles are currently out of distribution.
Although the principal collecting efforts have been focused on
documentaries, the Schomburg Center is also in the process of
becoming a major repository of dramatic works created by
independent black filmmakers.
The Schomburg Center has also developed a substantial collection
of film outtakes, consisting of some four million feet of
unedited documentary footage (including work prints and optical
and magnetic sound reels). In some instances the collection of
outtakes has been focused on the preservation of the work of a
major documentary filmmaker, as in the case of veteran African-
American filmmaker William Greaves. Outtakes from Mr. Greaves'
quarter of a century of filmmaking include interviews with major
literary and artistic figures from the Harlem Renaissance period,
and the historic 1972 National Black Political Convention in
Gary, Indiana, among others. In other instances, the collection
of outtakes is focused on preserving the raw footage of a
specific film, as in the case of the classic, Jazz On A Summer's
Day. This documentation of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival
includes performances by Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry, Chico
Hamilton, Big Maybelle, Jimmy Giuffre, Mahalia Jackson,
Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Anita O'Day, Max Roach, George
Shearing, Sonny Stitt, Jack Teagarden and Dinah Washington.
Since 1980 the Schomburg Center has regularly conducted
videotaped oral history interviews and is currently documenting
all public programs--lectures, conferences, concerts and
theatrical productions--on broadcast quality videotape through
its Oral History/Video Documentation Program.
The Schomburg Center's moving image holdings, like its
collections in other formats, are cataloged in RLIN. These
records are downloaded into the Catalog of The New York Public
Library (CATNYP), an online public access catalog. Patrons have
in-house access to screening completed documentaries or outtakes.
Schomburg Center prints are not loaned, but are restricted to
screening for research purposes on library premises. No
reproductions are permitted without verified, written permission
from copyright holders.
The Schomburg Center maintains its film collections in a climate
controlled vault with appropriate temperature and humidity
settings. Prints are never screened via film projectors; rather,
for preservation purposes, these materials are screened only on a
film scanner. Further, when copyright permits, prints are
transferred to video tape for in-house public use. The Schomburg
Center maintains a film chain in its production facility, making
service video copies of films, where permissible. This reduces
the potential of damage to its collections which might occur
should those collections be sent to outside labs.
The Rare Books and Manuscripts Division holds approximately
300,000 feet of film (approximately 2,700 reels) that compose
parts of the manuscript and archival collections in its holdings.
The bulk of these materials are 16mm color films, but there are
also significant numbers of 35mm films, as well as some 8mm
films. These include negatives, optical and magnetic sound
tracks, work prints and release prints. The Division also holds
159 videotapes in a number of different formats. The films date
from the 1930s to the 1980s, and document a wide variety of
subjects relating to twentieth century American history. They
include documentary films, outtakes from documentaries, political
commercials, kinescopes of early television shows, home movies of
prominent individuals and newsreels. Among these materials is
film footage of a 1932 disarmament march, a campaign film for
Congressman Henry Wallace, a film documenting President Kennedy's
visit to the site of the New York World's Fair and film footage
of a U. S. Senate baseball game held in the late 1960s. Most of
the films held by this Division are unique.
The Rare Books and Manuscripts Division has received a grant from
the U. S. Department of Education to preserve and describe some
of its audio-visual holdings. In the course of the two-year
project, funded by this grant, approximately 65% of these
materials are being described at collection level in RLIN, and
this information is downloaded to The Library's online catalog.
Item-level descriptions are being entered into a data base that
will be made available to on-site researchers. In most
instances, preservation copies of these films are made on 1"
videotape (format C ) ; in a few instances, film copies are made.
Service copies of the films, for use by researchers, are made on
112" VHS videotape. The original films are removed from reels,
placed on 2 112" polyethylene film cores and stored in
polypropylene film cans. The films are housed in climate
controlled stacks, but these are designed for the storage of
books and papers, and do not provide ideal conditions for the
long term storage of films. For this reason, consideration is
being given to the possibility of storing films off-site. The
Rare Books and Manuscripts Division expects this media
preservation project to become an on-going effort, but it is
likely to depend on external funds for some time.
The scope and subject matter of the films held by the various
divisions of The New York Public Library, and the procedures
followed for preserving and providing access to them, vary
somewhat. Nevertheless, we have common concerns regarding film
preservation. Although collectively we hold many thousands of
titles of released films, we are also preserving millions of feet
of footage that would appear to fall outside the primary scope of
concern of the National Film Preservation Board. Some of these
are film productions that were created originally for television
broadcast; others are not fully edited films or are productions
308
1 2
that were not created for theatrical exhibition. We feel that
these types of materials merit preservation because of their
value to researchers and documentary filmmakers. These
researchers and documentary filmmakers require large volumes of
raw footage from which to select appropriate segments, just as
filmmakers will shoot many more hours of footage than will ever
make their final cut.
For this reason, we would urge the Board to concern itself not
only with the preservation and restoration of individual released
titles, but also with collections that contain released films,
unreleased films and raw footage. This is not to suggest the
preservation of anything and everything. Given the costs of film
preservation, we recognize the importance of being selective
about what is preserved. The re-creation of this Board, and its
contact with so many institutions through this very hearing
process, should prove vital for the making of informed decisions
regarding appropriate selections for preservation efforts.
However, unreleased titles and raw footage, held in research
institutions, must be included in any plan designed to preserve
the nation's film heritage. This film, when viewed by future
generations, will provide them with greater insights into the
people and events of their past; and, that same film will be the
raw footage upon which future generations of documentary
filmmakers will rely for their productions.
In order to assure the preservation of these treasures,
institutions such as The New York Public Library rely upon
funding from external sources. Only with continued funding can
the many formats and film stocks be secured under the appropriate
environmental conditions. Only with continued funding can the
appropriate screening equipment required for the various formats
be maintained. Only with continued funding can trained film
historians, archivists, catalogers and technicians be kept on
staff, working cohesively to preserve our cinematographic legacy.
Scientific studies on film preservation issues must be undertaken
to examine anew the chemical properties of film in relation to
time and environment; and to determine the negative impact of
film storage materials themselves, such as film cans and
shelving. National standards must be established, published and
widely disseminated so that film archivists are not left to rely
upon their own experiences and the studies conducted by the
manufacturers of media materials.
We further recommend that the Board expand that which is certain
to be gained by this hearing process by initiating a national
survey of all institutions collecting and/or preserving motion
picture film. Whether conducted as one national survey or
numerous regional or statewide surveys, such an undertaking would
finally provide some sense of the volume and scope of the
nation's film repositories. 310
Before concluding, there is one other area, which is apparently
outside of the Board's mandate, but that we believe, at the very
least, should be acknowledged by the Board as an area worthy of
similar concern; this is the matter of videotape. As we
acknowledge that both the documentation and the dramatization of
our experiences that were once exclusively captured on film are
increasingly being captured on videotape, we must also
acknowledge that this even more physically fragile medium must be
preserved if we are not to lose a substantial part of the history
of the last two decades.
Finally, we would like to recommend that the National Film
Preservation Board create a structure to facilitate ongoing
dialogue among the various institutions whose comments were
sought for this study and the Board. Such a structure might be
modelled after the National Historic Preservation Trust, the
National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the
Commission on Preservation and Access, each of which works to
conduct surveys, provide advice, and implement plans. In our
view, it would also be useful to include representation on the
Board from archives, museums and libraries that have significant
film holdings, but which are not members of the International
Federation of Film Archives. There should also be representation
from professional organizations such as The Society of American
Archivists, The Association of Moving Image Archivists, and The
American Library Association.
As stated at the beginning of this presentation, The New York
Public Library welcomes the passage of the National Film
Preservation Act of 1 9 9 2 . We believe that all of the issues
we've raised must be part of any national film preservation plan.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify before you
today.
prepared by:
Betty L. Corwin, Project Director Theatre on Film and Tape Archive Billy Rose Theatre Collection
Richard Hollinger, Archivist Rare Books and Manuscripts Division Central Research Library
James Briggs Murray, Curator Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division Schomburg Center for Research In Black Culture
Marie Nesthus, Principal Librarian Donne11 Media Center
Madeleine Nichols, Curator Dance Collection
January 1 9 9 3